


New Blooms

by IoG



Series: Frost Flowering [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, One Shot Collection, Sansa/Happiness OTP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-16 20:28:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14172792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IoG/pseuds/IoG
Summary: Scenes from a happy-ish ending.





	1. Names

He sat beside her on the bed, holding her hair as she gripped the large bowl. She'd had such trouble with mother's stomach this time, but today seemed worst than most. She'd seen to the boys at breakfast, looked over Aelinor's embroidery, and then had retreated to their rooms with the apples of her cheeks devoid of color. When she didn't return within the hour, he'd followed to find her in bed, eyes clenched against the naseau.

"Should I fetch Maester Lomys?"

“No. Nothing to be done.” She gulped air for a moment, before continuing. “It’s a good thing. A babe who makes their mother sick is more likely to quicken.”

Their last pregnancy had not progressed that far. He knew how desperately Sansa wanted this babe.

“Yes, but can we ease your illness in the meantime? Tea? Hard bread?”

He stopped suggesting solutions when she made a strangled groan. He grasped her hair, and made soothing sounds.

Afterwards, as she remained bent over, breathing heavily, he sought to distract her by suggesting silly names they might saddle their next child with. After “Baedlegon” elicited a chuckle, he stated in mock affront, “Perhaps you have better ideas.”

She lifted her head a moment and offered, “I had thought I might like to name the child after Jon, if it’s a boy? Arya already has little Edd and Robb and Alys has baby Brandon.”

He knew how fond Sansa was of her cousin. She had said once that they had not been close as children, but that winter was a time for family. Certainly, Highgarden’s ravens had not made as many visits to the Wall in the year’s before she consented to become his wife. It was not a surprise she wished to honor him in such a way.

It was just...Jon was a terrible choice for a name. In his head he could hear his grandmother clucking at it: Jon Tyrell. Incidentally, Lady Olenna had been exceptionally fond of Sansa before she passed. She deemed the new Lady of Highgarden bright and canny, but had always said Jon was so terribly common and simple a name. And that comment had come years before Lord Commander Snow has helped defeat a nearly inconceivable threat. The numbers of Jons summoned to dinner by their mothers, chastised by their maesters, or playing in their cribs across Westeros these days seemed incalculable.

Perhaps they could give the boy a middle name and he could subtly encourage its use? 

She gagged again.

“Of course.” He replied, combing her hair with his fingers. He loved her hair. It was such a vibrant color from distance, but as it passed under its thumb he could see the medley of strands. It was like a grove of marigolds. “And if the babe is a girl?”

“Jona maybe? I don’t know.” Her breathing was evening out. Sometimes expelling the offending food was all that could be done. “I’ll think about it.”

He kissed her crown. “I’m sure Little Duncanette Tryell will be the most beautiful girl in the Reach."

“Willas,” she groaned.

It was two moon later, after illness had passed and once the babe began kicking a Northern Reel every night, that Sansa settled before him in the solar and declared, “Aema, if she’s a girl.”

“Aema?”

“I wrote to the Wall and asked Jon what he would name a little girl. He said that Maester Aemon was a good man that he would have remembered and his friend, Sam Tarley, informed him it would be a good name for the Reach.”

“Aema Tyrell. I love it.” She reached across and squeezed his hand at such a statement. He lifted it to kiss her knuckles and she smiled. “A good name.” 

The scream little Aema released when Maester Lomys announced her suggested she agreed.


	2. Princesses

Looking down at the crib, she decided it was terribly unfair. How could this sleeping baby be a Princess? She was so little and boring.  There was nothing graceful or regal about her as she laid there crying and pooping.  
  
She understood the mechanics of it.  She was a very good student.  Maester Lomys said so. Mother was a Princess from The North. When she had married Father she didn’t lose her title, of course. And because Mother was a Princess, Aema was one as well.    
  
Mother was her Mother, but not her first Mother, so she wasn’t also a Princess.   
  
(She didn’t mean to discount her first mother, Elin.  Everyone said she had been kind and beautiful and loved her very much. Grandfather came every year for her name day and would tell her stories of when Elin was a girl.)  
  
The boys were Princes too, but that never bothered her. Being a Prince wasn’t that interesting. Princes didn’t wear dresses or have tea parties.  There was definitely nothing regal about the way Harlan and Brynden played in the mud.  
  
Aema woke up. Big blue eyes stared up at her.  Her cheeks pinked a little in shame.  Father had told her many times how important it was to be the eldest.  He would know, he was older than Uncles Garlan and Loras, and Aunt Margaery.  The day after Aema was born, as she held the sleeping babe, he had told her how proud he was of her, and how her responsibilities had grown now that she had a little sister - how she needed to “model good behavior.”  
  
She supposed she could teach Aema how to be a Lady. Mother and Grandmother and Aunts Margaery and Leonette all said she was growing up to be such a Lady.  Babies didn’t do much, but, as Aema's eyes focused on her face, they did seem to always be watching.  She’d show her how to be the best Lady.  Being a Lady couldn’t be that different from being a Princess?  
  
*  
  
“Have you given thought to a betrothal for Aelinor?”  
  
She suppressed a smile to see the brief flash of panic upon Willas’ face.  She’d waited to raise this until it was just them in their solar in the evening with Aema nursing to raise the topic. She’d expected a rather effusive initial response.  
  
“She’s just one and ten, Sansa!”  
  
“I don’t mean for her to marry any time soon. Just have you considered with whom she might match eventually?”  
  
“It’s much to soon for that. Right?”  
  
“I was eight-and-ten when we married. I would hope to give Aelinor as much time to grown into herself, but a good betrothal offers security and protection.  I think whomever she marries, it should be a boy whose character we have observed well. That takes time. Better to start early.”  
  
Willas’s alarm was subsiding.  
  
“Why do I think you have someone in mind?”  
  
“A mother thinks about these things.”  She paused a moment, “Unless, you’d rather I’d not be involved.  If it’s not my place.”  
  
“Don’t be daft.”  His smile warmed her whole being.  “I know you wouldn’t have brought it up without a good plan.”  
  
“Your relationship with Prince Oberyn has been a boon to the Reach, cooling historic tensions. It’s been many years since your last visit to Sunspear, and I’ve never been. Perhaps, once Aema has weaned and is able to stay behind with your Mother, we should accept his kind invitation.”  
  
“And if we meet and take the measure of Princess Arianne's eldest, it would just be happenstance?”  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
“It’s quite an idea.”  
  
“It would be good to formalize your friendship with a marriage if he is a kind and honorable young man.”  
  
“I see the political reasons behind such a marriage...And it would be a high match, befitting her station and character.”    
  
“What a boon,” she said with a smile.  
  
*  
  
She was delighted to be back at Highgarden. The heavy heat was left behind on the the Prince’s Pass and she’d never grown accustomed to the spice of the food in Dorne.  Not to mention, the tightness around Willas’s eyes had relaxed after a few weeks off the road. She so hated seeing him in pain.  
  
It had been a good visit. Princess Arianne was very welcoming and it thrilled her to her core to see a woman so in command of her own court - absent extenuating dragons. Prince Oberyn seemed a delightful rogue, though he made her blush on numerous occasions. Willas teased her and told her the man was much mellowed.    
  
“If you had met Prince Oberyn five and ten years ago, you cheeks would have forever matched your hair,” he had told one evening, before kissing her in a way that would have made that younger version of herself aghast.  
  
But most importantly, young Mors seemed intelligent and good mannered. She watched like a hawk as he interacted with his mother and younger sisters.  But he appeared kind and honorable.  He was respectful to Princess Arianne and treated the girls with care and gentle teasing, even when he didn’t know he was being observed.  
  
Summer liked him.  
  
But, this was all more frightening than she had expected.  Before departing from Highgarden it had seemed so simple.  But once they arrived in Sunspear, a traitorous voice told her over and over that he could be hiding a nature like Joffrey’s.  As Joffrey had done.  She knew that was unlikely. In retrospect, Joffrey hadn’t hidden it well enough were he not a crown prince. But, even though she knew these fears were likely without cause, she could never totally quiet them.  She worried for Aelinor.  
  
Who was here now. She set down her embroidery and beckoned her daughter into her solar.  The girl was beaming.  
  
“I received a letter.  All the way from Sunspear!”  
  
She chuckled at the enthusiasm. “May I?”  
  
Aelinor shied back a bit, a hint of a women’s reserve in the girl’s body, before the smile overtook her face again and the letter was handed forward.  
  
It was in a careful, if childish, hand.  Mors asked after their journey, Highgarden, and Aelinor's puppy.  He thanked Aelinor for attending his tenth name day party.  But her favorite part was the coda.  
  
 _I know you were worried that Baby Aema wouldn’t recognize you, when you got home after your visit. I hope she did! But don’t be upset if not, babies are silly. Last year, Nymeria would cry every time Mother left the room!_  
  
“My, aren’t you grown up.  A raven just for you.”  Aelinor stood taller and shook out her curls at the words.  
  
“Grandfather sends some, but that doesn’t count.”  
  
“I suppose not.”  
  
“Can we go back to Dorne? Not now, but later? I want to see the Water Gardens. Mors said they were beautiful.  Also, sometimes they see dolphins there! We never had the chance on this visit.”  The words tumbled out from the little body before her.  
  
“Perhaps,” she told her daughter. Most likely, she told herself.  As the visit drew to a close, Princess Arianne had noted that Ryanne was two years Mors’ junior. A fitting tenth name day would be needed for her eldest daughter as well, and the Princess did so hope the Tyrells would attend.  They told her they would be delighted to do so.  
  
“Would you like my help with your letter?”  
  
“No,” Aelinor stated firmly, before blushing at the raised eyebrow such a response elicited.  
  
“That is fine, but I would like to read it before it is sent.”  
  
Aelinor nodded.  
  
“May I borrow your seal? So it looks fancy?”  
  
*  
  
She smiled to see her daughter as the young woman entered to break her fast. Willas was still abed, and she was glad of it.  This was a conversation better between just women.  Mors and Aelinor had spent the day before cloistered together, as was tradition, and she wished to ensure all was well.  
  
Dorne had different customs.  Those comforted her that this particular conversation might be less fraught than those she might have otherwise had, but still, she needed to ask.  She had yearned to speak with her mother after her first times with Joffrey and Willas, albeit for different reasons.  
  
“Princess Aelinor,” she greeted, acknowledging the woman before her, wedded and bedded, even as she thought upon the toddler who had greeted her that first day at Highgarden so many years before.  
  
Aelinor let loose a laugh, surprised and startled by the words, before responding in kind, “Princess Sansa.”  Aelinor shook her head at the words, stood on her toes to kiss her cheek - Aelinor was always petite - and amended her hello, “Mother.”  
  
Aelinor had first called her Mother a fortnight after her fourth name.  It had been offhand, she had doubted the girl noticed, but she couldn’t help but think of it now: the pink bow trailing behind Aelinor’s dress, untied after the day’s events, while the doll lost and then found after many tears was gripped in a tiny hand, lest she escape again.  She remembered how the moments shimmered between the little girl’s words and her own response, before the same girl’s voice drew her out of her memory.  
  
“That sounds so odd to my ears.  Princess Aelinor.”  
  
Her daughter bent close, before confessing,  “It shouldn’t, though. I practiced saying it over and over after Aema was born. I was mightily jealous.”  
  
“I know,” she responded with her own chuckle.  
  
“You did?”  Aelinor lifted her hand to cover her mouth.  “That’s terrible. I tried so hard not to be, not to care.”  
  
“Of course I knew. A mother knows these things.”  
  
“I hope you didn’t hold it against me. I was just being a silly little girl.”  
  
“No, nothing of the sort. I was impressed at the time how well you handled it.  You didn’t hold it against Aema that she had such a title as a titchy little thing.  I worried you would feel you were being replaced.”  
  
Aelinor pursed her lips and made un-regal little snort, “No, never.  I don’t think it even occurred to me.  I clearly thought well of myself.”  
  
“I am so glad.  You’ll find, I hope, that each of your children is a new delight, and none equivalent.”  She made her own conspiratorial smile, before sharing, “I heard you, one evening, as you practiced.  It was the first time I realized that you were  closer to womanhood than the cradle.  It was good.  My days were so busy with the childish delights of your siblings, it was a helpful reminder. In fact, as I listened to you, it occurred to me that it was time to start considering potential betrothals.”  
  
“And if we happened to take a trip to Sunspear a year later?”  
  
“Funny how those things work.  Now, you are well?  Mors was...”  
  
Aelinor pursed her lips, uncomfortable, before quickly and quietly staring, “Mors was quite kind and attentive.  I am well, and we absolutely never need speak of it again.”  
  
“You are happy?”  That was all she needed to hear.  The rest would settle.  
  
The smile that met her wasn’t a Martell sun yet, shining with blinding brightness, but still a Tyrell rose, blooming across Aelinor’s face.  She could see the joy there, but also the room for it to grow strong.  “I am, Mother. I am."


End file.
